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Lesson of the B Ark
the lesson of the B Ark. when i joke about the hitch hiker’s guide to the galaxy being my bible, there is some truth in that jest. allow me to explain. in the series, a planet decides to send all of the ‘lower class’ (useless) people off in space, to rid themselves of telephone sanitizers and the like. the population of that planet, fictionally (of course), dies off, thanks to a virus spread by dirty telephones. the point is; we are all on this rock together. we are all critical to one another’s survival. yes, i can be happy working at a gas station with enough money to put a roof over my head and food in my belly. people need me to sell them cigarettes and alcohol, if i go away, someone will fill my spot, it’s not a highly skilled job. it doesn’t mean those people do not serve a function. that does not mean those people don’t deserve happiness to. and most importantly, it does not mean they should not have access to quality health care. that is the one thing i am frightened about giving up, continuing on with Plan C, and why i really want Plan A to work. we do not have universal health care, and being laid up in a hospital for a simple staph infection can cost upwards of $15,000 i cannot afford that. i cannot even afford the insurance premiums to ensure my pathetic savings is safe, and my survival is assured. why? from the ‘Restaurant at the End of the Universe’ by Sir Douglas Adams (i don’t care what the royal family says, he’s a Knight in my mind), meant as fair-use reproduction: Chapter 25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has this to say about the planet of Golgafrincham: It is a planet with an ancient and mysterious history, rich in legend, red, and occasionally green with the blood of those who sought in times gone by to conquer her; a land of parched and barren landscapes, of sweet and sultry air heady with the scent of the perfumed springs that trickle over its hot and dusty rocks and nourish the dark and musky lichens beneath; a land of fevered brows and intoxicated imaginings, particularly among those who taste the lichens; a land also of cool and shaded thoughts among those who have learned to forswear the lichens and find a tree to sit beneath; a land also of steel and blood and heroism; a land of the body and of the spirit. This was its history. And in all this ancient and mysterious history, the most mysterious figures of all were without doubt those of the Great Circling Poets of Arium. These Circling Poets used to live in remote mountain passes where they would lie in way for small bands of unwary travelers, circle around them, and throw rocks at them. And when the travelers cried out, saying why didn’t they go away and get on with writing some poems instead of pestering people with all this rock-throwing business, they would suddenly stop, and then break into one of the seven hundred and ninety-four great Song Cycles of Vassillian. These songs were all of extraordinary beauty, and even more extraordinary length, and all fell into exactly the same pattern. The first part of each song would tell how there once went forth from the City of Vassillian a party of five sage princes with four horses. The princes, who are of course brave, noble and wise, travel widely in distant lands, five giant ogres, persue exoctic philosophies, take tea with weird gods and rescue beautiful monsters from revening princesses before finally announcing that they have achieved enlightenment and that their wanderings are therefore accomplished. The second, and much longer, part of each song would then tell of all their bickerings about which of them is going to have to walk back. All this lay in the planet’s remote past. It was, however, a descendent of one of these eccentric poets who invented the spurious tales of impending doom which enabled the people of Golgafrincham to rid themselves of an entire useless third of their population. The other two-thirds stayed firmly at home and lived full, rich and happy lives until they were all suddenly wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone.